


A Poorly Placed Vent

by moodiful819



Series: Cranky Saltmates [3]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben/Rose Friendship, Cosmic Comedic Timing, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Fluff, Gen, Kylo Ren is Matt the Radar Technician, Redeemed Ben Solo, Saltmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 01:06:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13283676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moodiful819/pseuds/moodiful819
Summary: In which Rose gets a new coworker named Matt. No, it's legit. He swears.





	A Poorly Placed Vent

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't sleep and this seemed funny at 3AM.

Looking up from his assignment papers, Rose dragged her gaze over her new “coworker”, taking in the large, ill-fitting glasses and his dry, straw-colored hair. **  
**

“Ben, you look awful.”

There was a brief moment of indignation before he choked down. “I’m not this ‘Ben’ person. My name is Matt. I’m a technician sent down to help you,” he insisted, motioning to his papers.

“You mean these obviously faked ones? Parta’s handwriting looks nothing like that, you know,” Rose commented as she unloaded her toolbox from a hover-cart.

“I spent an hour copying her handwriting,” Ben groused. “How could you tell?”

Rose pondered that. It was really simple actually—everyone on base had messy handwriting, but Ben’s was more “script” than “scrawl”. It was hard to explain. She just knew it when she saw it.

But she also had better things to do today than tell Ben how his handwriting was too nice to pass for any of the Resistance Officers. There was a full shift of repairs in front of her and she needed to get started.

“Look, I don’t have time for this today. If you really feel like you need to hide from Rey, fine—go ahead. But if you’re staying, ‘Matt,’ you’re going to have to pull your weight here. Now hand me that screwdriver.”

“Matt” reached into her toolbox as Rose fitted the holo-com around her temples. It was an all-purpose tool all the workers used during maintenance. It was capable of video and radio communication, but she mostly used it for the hands-free flashlight function, and turned it on to check the brightness.

When he handed her the screwdriver, she motioned for him to boost her into a vent overhead. As she climbed onto his shoulders, she felt herself knock his wig slightly and wrinkled her face.

“That thing feels like a wire ball. Why don’t you just take that stupid thing off? It has to be itchy.”

“I don’t want Rey to be able to spot me,” he explained, not that she didn’t already know her friend had a major catastrophic argument with his girlfriend and was hiding from her ire. The entire base knew they were currently fighting, and considering the new crater outside the base, Rose couldn’t blame Ben for wanting to hide. But…

“Aren’t you two force-bonded together? Wouldn’t she still be able to recognize you, even with the disguise?” Rose was still trying to understand all this Force-stuff, but she assumed that something as deep and metaphysical as their destiny bond would be able to see through this kind of thing, right?

Apparently she was right because she could feel Ben lock up under her legs.  **Idiot.**

“So what did you do to make her so mad at you anyway?” Rose asked after logging a note onto her holo-com. While the base knew they were fighting, no one seemed to know what caused it.

“I snuck off base to look for something. Multiple times. Rey caught me and demanded to know what I was doing, especially since I was blocking the bond.”

“So what were you doing?”

Beneath her, Ben sighed. “I was looking for this doll she had. We were stationed close enough to Jakku and she’d mentioned a couple of times that she’d had the thing and missed it and I figured I would try and look for it for her. It’s stupid and I know it was stupid to keep it a secret from her—but I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“So why not just tell her what you were doing?”

“What part of ‘surprise’ do you not understand?” A pointed look was sent her way, but with the top half of Rose buried in a vent, it was wasted; Ben sighed. “I just wanted to do something for her because…I don’t know…I wasn’t thinking straight. Love and all that,” he mumbled.

Above his head was a small whining hiss. Rose was probably logging another repair note, he thought, until he heard her voice echo out of the vent.

“Did you get all that, Rey?”

Immediately, Ben flushed down to his toes. “You  **CALLED HER**?”

“No. She called me asking how the repairs were going. You’re the one who kept talking about your gushy romantic plan for her. At least she doesn’t look mad at you anymore and—HEY, GET BACK HERE! I’M STILL IN THIS VENT!”


End file.
